Meaning Visual Merchandising Archives

What is Merchandising?

Merchandising is a process of selling goods and services. The process of starts with identifying target customers, setting a price for a particular product, do the negotiation and finally deliver the product to the target customers.

I asked the question of what do you mean by merchandising to several people who are involved with the apparel industry just to hear from them how they actually define merchandising. Most of them said that all the activities to sell a product is merchandising. So, the scope of the job merchandising is not limited to how we define merchandising is rather than all activities are related to selling.

As a function of merchandising, apparel manufacturer or wholesaler use merchandisers to communicate with the buyer of garments or to bring new customer, negotiate with them and make them induce to place an order. So, in this case merchandising is related to wholesale of merchandise (garments).

Characteristics of Merchandising

If you analyze the term “Merchandising” you may identify the following characteristics:

Merchandisers are responsible for merchandising.
It helps to sell the product to the target customers or audiences.
Works as a communication media for manufactuere or wholesellers and retailer or final consumers.

Example of Apparel Merchandising

Suppose H & M buy different types of garments from Epyllion and those people responsible for communicating, placing the order, bargaining, receiving an order, sampling, etc. are a merchandiser and all together these tasks are merchandising.

So, the process by which a merchandiser sells its products to the target customer is called merchandising. Merchandising is a commonly used term, mostly applicable in the apparel industry. Every year in apparel industry many merchandisers are recruited for the purpose of merchandising.

The demand for merchandising is increasing for-profit motive organization but the question is who will deal with merchandising for the organization. A person deals with the selling of products who is known as a merchandiser. Remember one thing that it is not necessary to involve merchandising for an export purpose it also can be used for local business.

There are Basically Two Forms of Merchandising

Retail Merchandising: Retail merchandising is mainly applicable to a retail store. The scope of retail merchandising is broad because we can use it for every type of products sold in the retail store.
Visual Merchandising: On the other hand, visual merchandising is another form of retail merchandising where the main stimulating factor is visualizing the product and service to create attraction and interest and ultimately selling of products.

Recently Another two forms of Merchandising are visible from the functional characteristics of merchandising. These are:

Virtual Merchandising (Online Selling) or Digital Merchandising or Ecommerce Merchandising
Wholesale Selling (Merchandising on behalf of Wholesaler or manufacturer)

Difference Between Merchandising and Marketing

Many people become confused about whether marketing and merchandising are similar or different. There is a difference between merchandising and marketing. Marketing is a broad area of business where merchandising is a part of marketing activities, which deals with the selling of goods and services.

Finally, briefly, we can define merchandising as a set of activities we (Merchandisers) do to sell our product and services to the target customers for the purpose of generating revenue and satisfy our customer. Merchandising is a set of activities for selling products, merchandise, service to the target customer with the help of merchandiser.

Garments Merchandising

Garments merchandising is both applicable for wholesale and retail merchandising in the apparel industry, Where merchandisers work for manufacturer, wholesaler and retail store. It is also known as apparel merchandising. It is one of the popular forms of merchandising because of its extensive use in the apparel industry. Merchandising process make it easier to meet the buyer’s requirement through time to time follow up and ensuring on-time delivery of garments items.

Garments Merchandiser

Garments merchandiser is the person who is responsible for the merchandising of garments products and services. Merchandising is the core function of a merchandiser. A garments merchandiser need to have several qualifications to become a successful merchandising. Garments merchandiser basically contact with garments buyers, negotiate with them, take orders, manage samples and send it to the buyers, take the order and finally, ensure the delivery of the product to the buyers at the right time.

What is Merchandising pdf

Written by

Md. Nahian Mahmud Shaikat

Visual Merchandiser

Visual merchandising is now one of the most demanding jobs for merchandisers in European countries. With the change in choice of consumers and the standard of living, people are now more conscious about fashion and style. The customer-driven visual appearance of goods and services is done by the visual merchandisers. Actually, the person who is responsible or involved with visual merchandising is considered as a visual merchandiser. They are the key success factor of a retail store.

If we define visual merchandiser broadly then we can say that they are the individuals or group of people who are actually working for creating the attractive visual look of a retail store which will work as a driving force to bring the customer. So that as a retail merchandiser you can continuously drive your prospective customers and meet their demand. Every popular retail brand has its own visual merchandiser. Visual merchandisers are one of the key success factors of apparel retail store because they create an eye-catching visual look of the store.

Visual Merchandising

Visual merchandising is different from any other traditional type of merchandising in a sense that for traditional merchandising, merchandisers actually work as a media or communicator between buyers and sellers. On behalf of a seller, a merchandiser deals with contacting with different current and prospective buyers located in the local market and international market. But the visual merchandisers work for ensuring visualizing product or services more gorgeously to get the attention of the customer which helps to increase the sales.

Basically, the involvement of visual merchandising is more common in a retail store where they work for the management of visual display of physical product to attract target customers.

Educational Qualifications of a Visual Merchandiser

Bachelor degree from fashion designing institute with a tremendous academic record.
Bachelor degree of architecture with good exposure to designing.
A student from marketing also can involve in visual merchandising but the important thing is, that person required to have knowledge about a choice of customer and ability to visualize the outlook of the store and display of product which will get the attention of the customers.
A person does not have any academic qualification of fashion designing, apparel, architecture, etc. can be a successful visual merchandiser only if he/she has real life experience and good exposure of visual merchandising. The important thing here is the experience that the person acquired through working and becomes a perfect visual merchandiser.

Qualities of a Good Visual Merchandiser

Ability to Visualize
Ability to Understand Customer’s Perception
Good Communication Skills
A Sense of Color and Design
Creative Mind
Awareness of Trends
Knowledge of Displaying Product
Ability to Use Modern Technology

Ability to Visualize

One of the main qualities of visual merchandisers is an ability to visualize the outlook of a store where the product will be displayed. Before actually doing arrangement to give the physical appearance of the store it is required to visually how it will look like and whether this will serve our purpose or not. Also, it is required to visually how the arrangement and the display of the product will create a positive attitude towards the customer’s mind and influence the customer to actually buy the product.

Ability to Understand Customers Perception

The responsibility of visual merchandiser is to plan to decorate the shop in a way that will attract the customers those who come to the store and buy the product. So the important thing is to understand the customer’s perception and choice then decorate and place the product in the right place in the right way. Which will helps to influence the buying behavior because the more attractive the product shows the more it will be demanded.

Good Communication Skills

Visual merchandisers sometimes assigned to arrange module of a showroom for particular business which is going to participate in any kind of trade fair. To attract thousands of people it is required to make the showroom attractive to the potential customers. So according to the requirement of the different department, visual merchandiser needs to communicate with different people working in different departments, that why visual merchandisers have to have good communication skills.

In other sense, a visual merchandiser actually communicates with the customer through his/her creative arrangement of the product or services in the showroom.

A sense of Color and Design

As a visual merchandiser, it is required to keep in mind the visual effect of the work because it will help to create a positive first impression. You can use any color for decorating but using proper color can make things more gorgeous. The color of a wall, color the of the roof, color of the floor, the color of the structure everything matters. So special consideration must be given when selecting a color, also for designing a product or service layout you have to consider the color combination that gets the intention of the customer.

Creative Mind

A creative mind can bring innovative ideas which actually can create a huge impact on the market. Sometimes you can see that for new and unique design customers are ready to pay the premium price that’s why companies always looking for a creative mind so that they get the unique product through making and selling. A visual merchandiser must have the capability to think differently by using their creative mind for the company for which they are working.

Awareness of Trends

Proper awareness of trends helps to work with the potential product. If a visual merchandiser is aware of the trend then he/she will work for ensuring the visual effect according to the market trends. On what basis customer choose their product, is it the quality or brand or any others factors. You can see that peoples are now more conscious about fashion, style, visual appearance, so merchandiser should keep in mind the current trends of the consumer’s demand.

Knowledge of Displaying Product

Proper knowledge of displaying a product is required to have by the visual merchandiser because, a product should have some specific qualities, features, price etc. These things must be visualized in a proper place with the product so that the customer can get the idea about the product when they are observing the product.

Ability to Use Modern Technology

In every aspect of our life we are now dependent on modern technology, with the help of the computer, the internet we may have access to information located on a web. As a visual merchandiser, you can design the outlet by using different AutoCAD software which helps to see how a design will look like. On the other hand, by using the internet you can get the idea of the latest trend, latest design, and the latest concept of visual merchandising around the world.

use of modern technology by a visual merchandiser

These are some of the qualities that a visual merchandiser required in his career. Although according to the product or store the concept may vary and also any other types of qualities may be required. The success of merchandiser depends on own qualities of how he/she can convince people to buy a product. As merchandiser works as a mediator between buyer and seller they actually influence by using their words and attitudes. You may find many visual merchandisers working in the same company and they are devoting their effort to get the same goal of organizational success through increasing sales of a product. And they are paid higher than other types of merchandiser because of their expertise.

If you want to be a good visual merchandiser then you have to understand how visual merchandising actually works and acquire knowledge about every aspect of merchandising. If you have the ability then you will definitely be successful in your merchandising of different sectors.

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